A day with the Yellow Jersey (and black/red/green jerseys)

This post is all about the day we spent with Chris Froome, reigning Tour de France champion and Kenyan born machine. We met part of his family and his fiancée, he wore a BU hat, and signed a Milele Tube bag. He loved what we were doing. So, as cycling fans you would think how cool is that, what a great day. However, that was not even the coolest part of our day.

We met Chris up in Iten, the “home of champions.” This is the town where all of the great distance runners of the world congregate. We were next door to the marathon world record holder and we saw hundreds of people training in town. Pick anyone that is well known and we will claim to have met them. Iten is also home to the naiscent Kenyan Riders, the de facto national cycling team, managed by Aussie bad ass Simon Blake.

Simon invited us to share their special day with the man in yellow. After some vehicle issues, we arrived while the team was out and spent the time with the local kids at the teams pump track. There is some serious talent there. John rode bmx despite being just a week removed from knee surgery. We met Nixon, the do-it-all team mechanic. The team showed up a while later; a collection of raw hard-bodies that used to either ride boda boda or run. Fast and well trained ahead of their departure for the Tour of Rwanda.

The team was excited by our products and spent much time convincing us to make 700c Milele Tubes. We agreed to but the new Tube Kingas on all of the team mountain bikes when they returned for training and to leave several Boda Lights. We also put some Milele Tubes on the black mamba of one rider’s father.

The meal with Chris and his family was delicious and fun, and the pictures of us and Froome are to be treasured – framing the signed tube bag will be cool too. However, we are left with two bigger impressions – Iten is a world class biking destination in the raw (trail builders stay and eat/drink for free), and Kenyan Riders are a few years and a hurdle or two away from being a team on the serious rise.